“Alice
came to a fork in the road. 'Which road do I take?' she asked.
‘Where
do you want to go?' responded the Cheshire Cat.
'I
don't know,' Alice answered.
'Then,'
said the Cat, 'it doesn't matter’.”

Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

A long time ago,
my dad told all of us in the car to beware of the menace of the herd. My dad
happened to be a blue-collar philosopher, if not a prophet, though I didn’t
realize it at the time.

The common
wisdom, what the smart set is apt to tell us, is that religious believers don’t
think, don’t question, don’t challenge. Believers are the herd in the worst
sense, a herd of stupid, blind sheep. But how often is rigorous reason applied
to this assertion, an assertion that is now conventional wisdom, an assertion
that troubles and intimidates many believers?

A black hole is
defined by physicists as a region of space-time from which gravity prevents
anything, including light, from escaping, a speck of space containing
unimaginable mass. The smart set and their disciples are certain (one might
say, they have faith) that black holes exist, but try to find a smart setter
who understands and can delineate the quantum physics that underlies this
concept.

Evolution is
defined as the change in the inherited characteristics of biological
populations over successive generations. The smart set and their disciples are
certain (one might say, they have faith) that evolution is occurring, but try
to find a smart setter who understands the genetics and biochemistry that
underlie evolutionary processes.

And then there’s
string theory. Particles that are waves and waves that are particles.
Dimensions exceeding those we can measure. Fundamental particles. The smart set
accepts all of it because science proclaims it, but is clueless as to the
theoretical physics and mathematics that predict these phenomena.

That’s not to
say that black holes, as understood by modern science, don’t exist, or that an
evolutionary process isn’t contributing to change in species, or that string
theory is a wayward explanation of reality, but only to point out that many put
faith in scientific
concepts they cannot themselves comprehend. In this sense, they are no
different than the “herd of religious believers” they so often ridicule.

As it happens,
society accepts almost anything the smart set is selling, without thinking,
without questioning, without challenge, and this isn’t new. F. Scott
Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby
and Evelyn Waugh’s Vile Bodies
exposed America and England’s early 20th century smart set. In the first half of the 20th
century, many prominent Americans advocated eugenics (abortion, sterilization,
euthanasia) to “improve and advance” society, but after the Nazis gave this
“noble science” a bad name, and smart setters had to be more discrete. The
smart set in the 1940s and ‘50s lauded Soviet Marxism, dismissed George Orwell
and Boris Pasternak as cranks. The smart set in the 1960s and ‘70s told us that
indiscriminate sex was harmless and victimless, snickered at those who were
faithful in their marriages. Ronald Reagan, who called the Soviet Union an
“evil empire” and John Paul II’s Faith and Reason and The Splendor of Truth, were anathema to the 1980s and ‘90s
smart set. More recently, the smart set has put an intellectual bulls-eye on
scientists/bioethicists like Dr. Leon Kass, who dare to challenge the assertion
that absolutely everything about human life can be explained in materialistic
terms.

Many in the
smart set still admire Mao Zedong, Lenin, and Castro, caudillos that presided
over the executions of too many to count. And why? Because the smart set that
many in society look to for enlightenmentfilm stars, authors, artists,
academics, and politiciansinform us that these are men to be admired; no need
to investigate brutal pasts. Perhaps the thousands or millions who were
murdered by these men deserved to die.

Why think for
oneself when the smart set can do our thinking for us?

Abortion? The
smart set tells us it’s about choosing to eliminate tissue, but is it rational
that a woman’s “choice” determines whether a fetus receives heroic medical
attention, or is treated as a mere lump of tissue? Same-sex marriage? The smart
set tells us it’s about compassion and equal rights, but what about the right
of a child to have a mother and
a father? Sex? The smart set tells us it’s a matter of stimulation and physical
pleasure, but what of the well documented psychological and physical wounds
that serial and indiscriminate sex produce?

The menace of
the herd. Do we want to think for ourselves, or are we swayed by the
glitterati, superficial puffs of smoke signifying nothing?

Here’s the
problem with the multitude that is swayed by the smart set. Jonathan Swift
said, “It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never
reasoned into.” Society has delegated its reasoning, generation after
generation, to an unreliable smart set.

The ability to
reason is a gift of God, cultivated with hard work and a willingness to compare
the narrative to the facts. Believers have no cause to be timid when it comes
to confronting the fallacies purveyed by the smart set. Revelation is on our
side, but so are reason, history, and human experience. Like G. K. Chesterton,
we should be happy warriors and like Edith Stein, we should relentlessly pursue
the True, the Good, and the Beautiful. Our star-struck culture needs help.
Let’s be about it…now!

About the Author

Thomas M. Doran

Thomas M. Doran is a professional engineer, an adjunct professor of civil engineering at Lawrence Technological University, and a member of the College of Fellows of The Engineering Society of Detroit. He is also the author of Toward the Gleam, Terrapin, and Iota (October 2014), all published by Ignatius Press.

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